


a monster is just a person you meet every day

by Anonymous



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: ....ITS NOT AS VIOLENT AS IT SOUDNS, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Death, Babies, Cannibalism, Dark Annabeth Chase, Dark Percy Jackson, Domestic, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Lotus Eater Machine, Mild Gore, Monsters, Post- Canon, does it count as cannibalism if youre no longer human?, post-tartarus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-08 04:56:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 53
Words: 19,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21470407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Percy doesn't dream ofTartarus,exactly.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Comments: 58
Kudos: 174
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so, quick note! the goriest of the tags do NOT happen for.... a while. itll be at least a month of posting before we get to the gore, which isnt that graphic bc i suck ass at fight scenes. its teen bc like i said it is not excessive violence (imo at least) and i didnt do archive warnings bc i wasnt sure if the violence was graphic or not. and also main charas die a liiitle bit? but its temporary character death. it's fine. theyre fine.  
anyways PLEASE stick around ive been working on this monster (lol) almost nonstep from mid november.

The city’s beautiful, just like they always knew it would be.

“I never doubted you for a minute,” Percy mumbles into Annabeth’s hair, smelling like sweat and the barest hint of the lemon shampoo she had been using since she was nine years old and demanded to pick her own soap from the camp shop.

“I did.” She laughs, curling an arm around Percy’s waist. “It’s one thing to imagine building something this massive when you’re a kid. It’s another thing altogether to actually make it.”

“We did it, though.”

Her smile is lopsided as she grins at the city. “We sure did. We always seem to do the impossible, don’t we?”


	2. Chapter 2

Percy and Annabeth live in a lofty apartment, the biggest and highest and closest to the shoreline and the argument is _Travis, when were you last the kid of the Great Prophecy or his girlfriend? And, Connor, when were you last the architect of the whole fucking city, riddle me that_ and eventually people go yeah, okay, and stop arguing.

It has huge windows and a large balcony and a fire escape that looks like any other New York fire escape except it’s marble-white and it doesn’t rattle when you run down too fast. Percy sets up a small garden, burying herbs for dinner’s and mint for crisp breath and _ambrosia trifida_ because you make ambrosia and nectar (demigod-healing variation) by mixing in specially grown ragweed oil (grind the seeds, bring them to boil in water, and when the oil floats to the top, ladle it off) with common food-stuffs (to make nectar, mix a ratio of three tablespoons of oil for every cup of water, mix it, then let it sit out for three days, mix in one teaspoon of moon-water for every cup of water, then you can drink it or save it, as it never expires) (to make ambrosia squares, all you have to do is make lemon bars with a shortbread crust but instead of lemon juice in the filling, replace it with equal parts ragweed oil, and bake it normally and like the nectar you can keep it indefinitely) plus demigods aren’t allergic to ragweed, and another thing Percy grows in the garden is moonlace he carefully unburied from his mom’s home and brought to his and Annabeth doesn’t comment on it. 

When the sun rises, at precisely 7:27 AM in the morning the light hits the water just right and floods into the house through the window paneling that’s tinted slightly blue and the rooms are washed in the color of a clear ocean or a summer sky.

The streets are new and clean, and every day a new demigod, no matter the age, pushes past the camp borders. Depending on their family status or how old they are, they’re set up either in a cabin or in a home in the city. The younger ones during the summer have to stay in the camp’s cabins, the one’s without homes to go to during the rest of the year can choose to stay in either the cabins or the specially set-aside townhouses, kept in track by any counselors that don’t go home either, plus Chiron and Mr. D. Once you hit the age of nineteen, you’re allowed to age out of camp, and can either head for the outside world, or live in one of the cities apartments.

Annabeth and Percy are twenty-one-years-old, and they live in the city full-time. It’s not quite New York City, it’s not quite Manhattan, but they live there regardless. Percy partly runs the household and mostly runs a bakery just a hop and a skip away from their apartment building. He calls it The Great Prophecy. He took a culinary program for two years to figure out the basic tenants of food safety and all that in New Rome and then he and Annabeth ran to their home where Annabeth, Official Architect of the Gods, built New Greece with the help of Gods stepping in and following her directions to the tee.

She spends her time thinking about expansions to make. He spends his time baking. She can’t cook for shit, but whenever she’s having trouble figuring out a certain problem, she spends a couple of hours decorating for him and she always magically finds a solution. It’s a good life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is actually my favorite chapter. i loved writing an explanation for ambrosia and nectar and i just like world building in general (not seen here: the hour i spent researching plants for a few lines)


	3. Chapter 3

Nico is the camp’s activities-director-in-training. Sometimes Annabeth will go to him and talk about expansions to the camp or for the kid’s places in the city and utilizing both to create a great environment for the kids and oh my gods, Nico, what if we got volunteers from the city and we can have the kids go on a scavenger hunt throughout the city and figure out what it’s actually like doing quests in cities and the demigods can pretend to be hunting them and NICO, oh my GODS, I’m a GENIUS!

Percy doesn’t visit him all that often. He would’ve liked to become better friends, but Nico always seems to look at him with the kind of loss that collapses ribcages and Percy doesn’t think he can handle that kind of misplaced devotion. Nico hid it well, but Percy was never that dense.

When Annabeth is at Nico’s for some reason or another, Percy gets a box out from his hoodie pocket and shoves it in his sock drawer. He got the box last time he was visiting his mom. Percy goes and starts the meat for dinner. It’s French Dip. He has to crockpot it.


	4. Chapter 4

Do you think young heroes ever get tired?

Harry Potter grows up and “all is well” as he stands on a train station with dead bodies clawing at the edges of his heels and he doesn’t always have a reflection at times and sometimes he causes objects to float or radio channels to change or cold spots to crop up like he’s a poltergeist, and you have to remember, as you raise an eyebrow, Harry Potter _died_ once. Do you ever think he just wants to stand up and shout off the rooftop of his horribly domestic house, that _I died for you and I live in a suburb with two-point-five children and all my family is dead and sometimes I want to fling myself off buildings just to see if my magic will catch my fall!_

Do you ever think Katniss Everdeen just wants to crush every Primrose she sees under her feet and scream until her throat is raw and thrash about in the role she’s been placed into, and do you ever think she wants to topple trains, get back the feeling of _winning_ and _angry speeches rallying the masses begging for blood._

_I was a teenager_ Joan of Arc whispers. _I’m dead, and so are all of you in due time,_ she hisses.


	5. Chapter 5

Percy and Annabeth crawled out of Tarataus gurgling and bloodied, on the fuzzy end of consciousness, and the ghosts surged forwards and scooped them up and rushed them out of the way, and a week and a half later when Percy was awake, he went to Nico to thank him.

“Thank me for what?” He asks gruffly, hunched over a schedule for the shadow jumps he’s going to have to make to get the statue to camp.

“You know. For the ghosts, when we got out. They brought us out of the way of the fighting.”

Nico turns and looks at him with a critical stare, squinting his eyes at Percy and his jaw is set in the way Percy’s was when he was fifteen and he fully read the first Great Prophecy for the first time and found out he was destined to die. “The only dead people,” Nico finally says after a long silence, “that I controlled were the ones that were Roman legionnaires. They were skeletons. Percy, I didn’t control any ghosts, the only ghosts that were there were the corrupted ancestors.”


	6. Chapter 6

So, yeah. Nico and Percy don’t really get along.


	7. Chapter 7

A giggling demigod, no older than sixteen, comes into his shop one day and offers him a coffee from the shop down the street. His equally giggly friend makes a little squealing noise when he grins at them.

He gets them sometimes, the teenagers who see him around the city or teaching classes and hear about all his great triumphs and develop celebrity crushes on him. It’s not a big deal, he carefully rejects them, reminds them of Annabeth, his never-far half in all the stories.

“It’s got cinnamon,” one of them offers shyly.

“I actually don’t like coffee,” Percy confesses, and the two look at each other and start giggling again. “Here, why don’t you take it back, and I can give you a pastry or two on the house? Annabeth decorated the cupcakes to look like they have walruses on them, and walruses are always a win.”

They frown a little bit, disappointed by the soft rejection, but the boy finally shrugs and takes his coffee back and replies, “Okay. Two walrus cupcakes.”


	8. Chapter 8

They don’t have any mirrors in their apartment. It’s certainly not on purpose, and Annabeth yelled about it for approximately two hours when they figured it out because she thought of everything BUT mirrors, how did she forget mirrors? They always seem to forget to buy them, and no matter how many times they say they’re going to write it down, it never makes it to the list, so they don’t have any mirrors.

None of the other objects in their home are nearly reflective enough, so they’ll brush their hair and brush their teeth and get dressed to a blank wall, relying on one another like they have their whole lives, but it’s just so soft and safe and utterly domestic, the way that Annabeth will straighten his apron or finish a spot he missed while shaving, or the way he’ll tell her if she still has toothpaste foam ringed around her mouth or if her fancy business-woman suit tie is crooked.

When they step out onto the street, the crossing signal is the exact shade of green he remembers his eyes being and he squeezes Annabeth’s hand because she’s always been in love with him and there are reminders of them, percyandannabeth, throughout the whole city, wired into the very gravel of the streets, and they are so fully ingrained into New Greece’s culture that they will never be removed unless the city is torn brick by brick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this doesnt have anything to say about the chapter but OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!  
i didnt talk abt it bc ao3 isnt social media, its just a place to post writing thats generally excluded from anything happening in my real life except when i talk abt it in notes or it stops updating (ive since learned to write ALL chapters or else ill just never get it finished) so you havent heard abt it but, i have been updating from new york for the past four days (five counting today). this is not a normal occurrence for me, as i do not live in new york.  
its like 530 am and we're driving to the airport right now, so if theres any major spelling errors you know why.
> 
> but anyways. yesterday, thursday, december twelfth, i saw the lightning thief the percy jackson musical on broadway live. no biggie.
> 
> (AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????????????????)
> 
> theres so much to say abt it! and in a couple hours when I'm home to my nice warm bed and my nice warm computer, i am happy to tell everyone abt it! but that's going to be a couple hours, and its going to be posted on my tumblr! come follow me! turn notifications on! do it! OR, feel free to ask abt any details in the comments cuz im more than happy 2 ramble abt it!
> 
> anyways love you it was so cool i got chris's signature on my playbill


	9. Chapter 9

Remember when Annabeth became a city and Percy lived within her?


	10. Chapter 10

There are demigods walking through the city every day, and not one of them seems to notice all the little signs they’ve left each other. Not street signs - they’re just markers on a map. Love notes, written in the way there are places for the homeless kids to sleep everywhere (because as much as Annabeth tries to get people into homes, there will always be kids who sleep on the streets as she did), in the laundromats with a golden trim around every washer and drier (because when Percy was a kid he would always accompany his mom to the laundromat and they would pool their coins to wash their clothes for another week, and he would always kick his feet and ask his mom stupid questions because he couldn’t read any books she brought for him (he wouldn’t be diagnosed with dyslexia until he was nine or ten, but they always knew about the ADHD before then) and she would talk about what design changes she wanted to make and gold trims were one of them), and restaurants that served the cheesiest enchiladas this side of the Eastside (because, duh).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you see minor edits made to chapter count or tags: trust me. its fine. you wont even realize anything has changed otherwise


	11. Chapter 11

When Rachel comes to the city for Percy’s birthday, chewing birthday cake flavored gum in a neon green maxi dress and a giant floppy red sun hat with a huge brim, she barrels in and within fifteen minutes, bangs a nail through a wall and hangs up a giant mural of Percy and Annabeth smiling softly at the viewer.

“You’re welcome,” she says smugly as Annabeth eyes it carefully. 

“We look different,” Annabeth points out, and Rachel frowns. “That’s not how we look.”

Rachel shrugs. “Get a mirror.” After that, she runs off and out into the night, and they don’t see her again until they go out for sushi with the rest of their friends where she puts too much wasabi on her food and doesn’t even seem to react. Before then, however, they stare at the painting.

Despite the soft expressions on their faces, there’s something in the eyes that makes Percy feel a twinge of disarray, deep in his chest. The pupils are a little too slitted, like a cat’s, and there’s a long scar standing starkly out on Annabeth’s face that comes from just past her hairline to the bridge of her nose. Their mouths are curled up in smiles, but their teeth are a little too sharp. 

Annabeth finally scoffs. “And I thought we were on good terms. This painting creeps me out. We should move it somewhere else, somewhere where we won’t see it as much.”

“Yeah,” Percy agrees faintly. They both know they’ll never move the painting, both like they both know they’ll never have any mirrors in their home.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning 4 implied sexual content (its minor but its there)

The first time Percy makes French Dip, the recipe written out carefully from his mom, frayed at the edges and nearly as old is he is, it's pretty bad.

He realizes they don't own a crockpot so he has to go store to store to find one, and then once he lugs it back up to their apartment (on foot, mind you, up stairs, because they haven't used an elevator in years and even if it is a pain, they are not going to let the Stoll’s beat them in the best apartment contest), he realizes they don't have any of the wine Sally wrote to use, so he heads back out to the closest liquor store and asks Pollux, who moved in soon after Percy and Annabeth “Which of your wines has the closest flavor to this?” while pointing at the recipe and he grins and leads him to the back.

“Here, man, on the house,” he says once he’s situated him with at least two bottles so he doesn't have to come back next time.

“Why free?” He asks, hiking the bottles up to his armpits so he won't accidentally drop them. His grin grows wider.

“Percy, dude-” Pollux fetches him a bag to put the bottles into instead, clicking his tongue in disapproval, and Percy takes it gratefully, “-have you ever made French Dip? The roast probably won’t be ready until like, eight at night. Annabeth is _so_ going to kill you.”

When he finally gets it started in the crockpot, it’s almost three, and you know what, Annabeth _is_ going to kill him. _He’s_ going to kill _himself._ If he has to wait until after seven to eat, he’s going to die and become a ghost.

She comes home and shucks her flats off and loosens her tie and prostates herself on the couch, groaning heavily. After a moment, she sits back up, slowly unbuttoning her shirt, frowning all the while. “Meeting after meeting, and Nico kept talking about the stupidest shit. We are planning to build a school, though. I would’ve killed for that when I was a kid - it took so long for me to get on track with the rest of my age group. How’s dinner coming along?”

There's an awkward silence where Percy is trying to think of something to say, but also her boobs are out and he can't focus properly. All he can do is stare and go steadily red. She snorts, and crosses over to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving her best piranha grin. “How long do I have to wait before I can eat?”

“A couple hours?” He offers. Annabeth laughs. “Hey, I didn’t know it would take so long!”

She tugs him over to the couch, smiling all the while. “Yeah, I know. I know, Seaweed Brain.”

It's actually a really, really good night. They eat dinner late, though. He’d have to get better about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! in the real world, as the final word count for this has reached over _20k_ (more than any other work ive fully published) and none of it good to my standards but im going with it anyway: remember! im a teenage boy with practically no proper formal writing education! thank


	13. Chapter 13

That night, Percy dreams for the first time in a long time.

The dream starts with him and his eyes closed. There’s just the sensation of going up. Going up, and being packed like sardines. The smell of sea brine and the stifling stench of coppery blood. In the background, a tune that reminded him once of love songs.

Then, suddenly, there’s a dinging sound, and Percy is on the ground, crouching in the Earth. There is dirt under his fingernails. It is bright, much too bright, but the humidity has lifted. The humidity he’s felt so long, his entire life, is lifted and he can _breathe. _

There’s a hand holding his, and the fingers curl, the nails digging into the flesh of his palm. The indents are crescent-shaped, and dirt mingles with blood and Percy-


	14. Chapter 14

-wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (sorry)


	15. Chapter 15

When he was a kid, his mom would sometimes let him stay up while she studied her night classes, just trying to pass high school. She was twenty-two years old.

“You know, honey,” Sally would tell him as he wriggled in his chair, “I always wanted to be a writer. But my parents left me when I wasn’t much older than you, and my uncle needed help when I was older. He always told me all of my ideas wouldn’t interest people.”

“Are you gonna be a writer then?” He would ask, and she would smile in that way adults did when a kid asked something like why are all the fishies floating upside down or why do I have to wear all black to see grandpa. Not like Percy ever had a grandpa though.

“No, honey. I wouldn’t know what to write.”


	16. Chapter 16

The day Percy plans to propose to Annabeth - officially propose to her, not just ask her in the middle of the night if she might maybe possibly consider marrying him someday in the future - Rachel stops by when Annabeth is out, and comes bearing a new painting and a sly look.

“You’re going to have a good day today,” she informs him, and takes the first painting down. Rachel grins at his flabbergasted face. “She’s going to say yes, Perce. She would’ve said for a very long time.”

He breaks out in laughter, and sits down, smiling like a fool. “So, you just decided to paint a new painting for us? It’s not that big of a deal.” She raises an eyebrow. “Okay, it’s a very big deal. Still.”

Her lips are painted blood red burgundy. One side quirks up knowingly. It matches her hair. “Because,” Rachel explains patiently, “this is the way it has to happen, Percy. This is where you just have to trust me and not act immediately on insticts.”

He doesn’t know what to say in response, but she carries on like normal, hanging the second painting up. He blinks at it once, then twice. It’s even creepier than the first. This time, it’s a painting of Percy, his fingers curled in the dirt of his herb garden, and Annabeth smiling nicely from just next to him. It’s a deceptively kind photo, but when you look closer, the pupils are more slitted than they were in the first painting. Annabeth’s hand, sat protectively on Percy’s shoulders, has long, sharp nails, almost claws. If you stare long enough, you can see a partially buried skull behind the moonlace. And, just around the skin of the eyes, are faint splotches the color of the other’s eyes, like the patterning of a monster.

Percy’s throat is dry. “Rachel, I don’t want this. You can keep it.” 

There’s no answer, and when he turns around, he realizes Rachel is no longer in the apartment. He isn’t even sure when she left.


	17. Chapter 17

When he was sent by his wife, Annabeth (he’ll never get sick of calling Annabeth his wife. They eloped basically the day after the formal engagement), to get the notes of the newest park plan from Nico, Percy was understandably nervous.

He knocks on the door to the Big House, and it swings open quickly to Nico holding this great big clipboard. He looks off-kilter, and the reading glasses Nico has (hilariously) taken to wearing are all askew.

“Percy.” He blinks like this is the strangest course of action that could take place. “What are you doing here?”

“Annabeth sent me. She's busy with some of the harpies, but she forgot her notes for the park plan here.” Percy scratches the back of his neck when he's nervous, and he catches Nico when Nico catches the way the sunlight catches the diamond in the ring. His eyes rake over Percy's face slowly, like he's trying to commit it to memory, and then Nico lets him inside.

He tsks “Annabeth,” even though she isn't here to hear it, and walks right over to a messy desk as Percy awkwardly trails behind him. “She's always losing notes. She's somehow the messiest demigod I've ever met, and I have been in very close contact with Reyna before, so it's saying something.”

Percy doesn't know what to say around Nico, so he just shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, slowing swaying back and forth on his heels. Nico hunches over the desk, wrestling through thousands, millions of papers. Out of nowhere, Nico’s soft voice, still marked with a once-lived life in Italy, says: “I was the exception.”

Percy's heart pounds in his ears. “What?”

“The exception. I wanted to invest in a library first,” Nico informs him. “Ah, here it is!” He twirls around on his feet and holds out to Percy a small pile of paper covered in notes and doodles, scrawled in Annabeth's handwriting. She likes using a pen, so he can see where she had to cross things out and rewrite them. He grabs for it, but Nico doesn't let go, his hold unrelenting.

“We're the only ones to have escaped Tartarus without being monsters, you know.” Nico’s face is blank, his dark eyes wide, swallowing the whites, but his tone is chipper. “I got out entirely by fluke. How did you and Annabeth get out?”

Percy tugs at the papers, feeling uneasy. “Nico, let go-”

“Can you feel it? The pull under the Earth? He's never let a single thing that's not a monster escape his grip.”

“Nico, I need you to-”

“Two giants carried me out. Not you. Not you. How?”

“Nico!” Percy finally exclaims. “_Please!_” His grip slackens so Percy finally tugs the papers from his hands and turns and runs far far away from him and the way his dark eyes always well up with pity and fear and confusion every time he sees him.


	18. Chapter 18

So, yeah. Percy and Nico don't really get along.


	19. Chapter 19

“We sold the last of the walrus cupcakes,” Percy tells her as he makes an arc and leaps over the back of the couch, landing (not-so) gracefully onto the cushions with only a small grunt.

She smiles at him, eyes narrowed, to show she thinks he’s amusing but also he’s not as funny as he thinks he is. Annabeth, throughout the years, has really perfected her disapproving faces, meant specifically for Percy. He grins. She rolls her eyes and finally kisses the tip of his nose. “We’ll have to make more, then, won’t we?”

“Nobody can resist a good sea creature.”

“Especially with tusks as large as that.”

“You love ‘em.”

“I’m partial to the seal.”


	20. Chapter 20

People always call Percy stupid or oblivious, looking at the ways he's failed out of classes or never confessed to Annabeth until he was on the brink of it, the eye of the storm, but everyone forgets that these words were hurled at him since he was a kid. He knows how to play his strengths. He knows how to feign weakness. They act like every oblivious tilt of the head is not calculated four steps ahead, like he hasn't forged his reputation with rivers of blood.

They see Perseus Jackson, hero of Olympus twice over, they can smell the old rot of monsters he's killed, and they still think he doesn't know how to deliberate. How to see.

The Lotus Bed was always his favorite myth. He went to the Lotus Hotel and he, not Grover, not Annabeth, but he, Percy Jackson, was the one who noticed when something was wrong. Percy can always tell when someone is trying to pull the wool over his eyes, but he keeps his cards close to his chest. So close, in fact, it appears that he doesn't have any secrets at all.


	21. Chapter 21

Whenever they visit Sally, she always seems distracted. Her eyes glaze over in something muddling the line between confusion and fear, and she's since stopped looking Percy and Annabeth in the face.

“How's the bakery going?” She will ask, dealing with a fussy Estelle.

“Oh, your step-father asked for this for dinner,” she'll explain, eyes fixed firmly on the dishes.

“You and Annabeth are finally formalizing that marriage then?” She confirms, looking anywhere except her son and his fiancee’s face. “How nice.”

She smells like chicken and garlic and Sally knew eye contact wasn't Percy's thing since he was a kid but this is ridiculous. He asks her once, when he’s over for Christmas and she’s drinking coffee and he’s drinking mint hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows floating in it, when it’s only the two of them up and awake with the sun’s slow morning rising. They sit at the same table, just across from him, and she answers his questions about the day’s agenda with the same exhaustion she’s had since Percy was a kid, and even though there’s nowhere to look but Percy and maybe her coffee, she doesn’t glance at him once. Finally, exasperated, he tells her, “Look at me.”

And his mom’s head tilts, her eyes pinned to just barely above him and she lies, “Percy, I’m already looking at you.” In response, Percy slams his mug on the table, the liquid sloshing around inside but he always uses water in his cocoa so he doesn’t lose anything.

“No, dammit. Mom, _look at me._” There’s something in his voice, an early morning harshness, a guttural sound from deep in his throat. Sally carefully looks him in the eyes, and she instantly recoils. It’s tiny, barely noticeable when seen from anyone else, but Percy, with his hyperfocus directed on his mom and her tells, sees it. “Mom,” he says, frustrated. “What?”

She swallows, her throat bobbing, and she quickly looks away, bringing the coffee cup up to her lips. “Nothing. Nothing, dear.” Her cup is shaking in her nervous hand. Percy wants to say more, but a loud babyish shriek interrupts them. “I’ll go take care of Estelle. I bet that woke everybody else up. Why don’t you start breakfast, Percy?”

And his mom stands up and walks away, leaving Percy at the table all by himself. He realizes his mug is cracked at the bottom from where he slammed it on the table.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning 4 implied sexual content!

“You know what we need to do?” Annabeth asks, boneless against the bedsheets. It comes out as a raspy whisper, and Percy pulls his head up and wipes his mouth off. It is uncouth to talk to a lady with your mouth full, as all those politeness books always said.

“What? That one thing that Nico kept saying was great?” And she goes red and hits him on the arm as he falls next to her in bed.

“No, gross. If that boy tells me anything like that when we’re supposed to be discussing growing other produce near the strawberry fields again, I’m going to tell Will and Will is going to put a curse on him,” Annabeth replies firmly, and attaches herself to his arm, soaking up his body warmth. “I _meant,_ we should do a picnic.”

Percy brushes several of her curls out of his face, and then forces her to roll over so he can be the big spoon and braid her hair so it won’t get in the way later. She keeps forgetting to pin it back before she goes down on him. “A picnic, huh? Why?”

“I used to do picnics all the time before I met you,” she informs him, stretching out one leg to entangle them together. “It was one of my favorite non-deadly things to do before I met you. Me and Grover would go out near the edge of the forest and he’d bring lemonade and fruit and I’d make us sandwiches.”

“How come I never got any of this?” Percy asks, mock-indigent.

“Because you were a terror and also you came years after I did. Now hush. What I’m saying is, you know how Grover is coming back for a whole month next week to visit and see what efforts I’m taking to make sure the wild here is being kept and improved on despite the city being here?”

“I’m sure I’ve heard something like that.” He had been excited for weeks, ever since Grover told him over the empathy link Grover still refused to remove.

“Well, that means that we, the original trio, can have a picnic by the forest! Just like old times! Or maybe Juniper would want to join too, and we can make it like, a double date thing.”

“Do married couples still do double dates?” Percy can _feel_ Annabeth roll her eyes, even though he can’t see the front of her face. She turns her head to his slowly, and locks their lips in a gentle kiss. It stretches out long enough that Percy remembers she’s still not wearing pants, and that’s when she pulls away.

“Okay, fine.” Annabeth’s smile is shy yet sharp, her lips rosy red from pressure. “It’s a get-together. Make me food, Mr. Jackson.”

And he laughs, and rolls on top of her, the bedsheet tangling in the movement. “That’s Mr. Chase, to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> annabeth and percy are both trans. theres not much to enforce this except for maybe very minor implications and the tags, but i need you to know they are both trans this is vital for me personally if you dont think of them as trans in this narrative then ive lost you


	23. Chapter 23

The second time Percy makes French Dip, it’s more on time than the first.

He makes a large batch the day before the picnic (and he starts it early in the day, _thank you very much, Pollux_) with homemade rolls and tender meat. The day of, he carefully places the cheese and meat onto the rolls, sticking it through with a toothpick, and packs the au jus in the fanciest containers they have. Then, he takes the rolls he made, and grabs the panini press. Juniper and Grover are going to have the best grilled cheese they’ll ever have in their _entire life._

Annabeth is enticed out of her hidey-hole - or as commonly referred to, her study - when she smells melting cheese in the air and onions being caramelized. “Mmm, hi, Perce,” she mumbles, going in to kiss the exposed skin where his shirt’s head hole is but accidentally hitting cloth, too distracted by the food. “Is that for lunch today?”

“That is Grover and Juniper’s lunch today,” he corrects, stirring the onions in the skillet. “We are having leftover French Dip because my French Dip is great. I’m making them the separate thing because they don’t eat meat.”

“You’re making grilled cheese and I don’t even get any?” Annabeth asks, the betrayal and horror in her voice quite real. “You monster.”

“I love you too!” is Percy’s chipper reply, and then she doesn’t talk to him for the fifteen minutes it takes to finish preparing the dish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the grilled cheese recipe is a real recipe! i havent had it but when i first read the recipe i went zomg so good... AND OMG IM SO SORRY I HAVENT POSTED CHAPTERS IN LIEK TWO DAYS ive been with family and so busy ill post one or two more to make it up 2 u :D](https://www.thechunkychef.com/ultimate-gourmet-grilled-cheese/)


	24. Chapter 24

“Voila!” Percy says, brandishing the picnic basket. “Une grilled fromage for la mademoiselle.” Juniper giggles and takes the plates out of the baskets, Annabeth smiling warmly at him from over her glass of lemonade.

“You know, I don’t think this guy has taken a lick of French,” Grover remarks. “I want my money back.”


	25. Chapter 25

“Percy, this is _so_ good!” Juniper exclaims after a few bites. “Is this rosemary?” Annabeth glowers at Percy, the jealousy of a good sandwich unbeatable. Percy dutifully ignores her.

“Yeah! Butter, rosemary, caramelized onions - the works! Annabeth is mad at me because I’m making her eat my just as good French Dip. It has rosemary too.” Grover takes a thoughtful bite of his sandwich, pulling it away quickly and a snapping piece of stretched cheese falls against the underside of his lips. Juniper made him shave his facial hair, so it doesn’t get caught in anything, thankfully.

“An angry Annabeth is a dangerous Annabeth,” he warns, and Percy shrugs, popping some mango into his waiting jaws.

“Annabeth is always mad at me. I’ll make her the grilled cheese later. I’ll make you the grilled cheese later, honey, how does that sound? Will that make you feel better?” She punches him on the arm as hard as she can without it being unjustifiably harsh.

Then, she smiles wickedly at him.

Then, while he’s distracted, she uses her foot to tip his container of au jus into his lap.

Grover and Juniper, the assholes, just laugh at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy 2020 :')


	26. Chapter 26

The sun is so warm and Percy is so full. The grass is soft under the blanket they set out, handknitted by Annabeth, and there’s a cool glass of lemonade pressed against his side, his dark fingers curled around it protectively. He feels so safe, with Annabeth and Juniper and Grover talking softly above him, his head pillowed in his wife’s lap. He’s been so tired lately.

Annabeth, wise, dream girl, Annabeth, grabbed some cupcakes from the bakery as they left, and there is dessert waiting for him and his friends, with raspberry coulis squirted in the middle, in-between dark chocolate cake. Maybe when he’s not so full. He’s _so_ full.

Percy sighs, his consciousness slipping away from him, and Percy-


	27. Chapter 27

-sits up.

“Morning,” Clovis says. “How was your nap, Perseus Jackson? Are you ready to get up now?”

“What,” says Percy.

“There are things that need doing when you wake, Perseus,” Nico adds from next to Clovis, and Percy’s head snaps over to him.

“What,” says Percy.

"You're dreaming, Perseus," Clovis reminds him softly. He kind of reminds Percy of a baby cow, with these gentle knowing eyes and curly hair that falls down near his eyes. He’s all tucked up under blankets of the Hypnos cabin beds, nursing a mug of hot chocolate. Nico looks like he always did when he was younger, all soft features used sharply rather than sharp features used softly like he is as an adult. His hair falls to his shoulders in unbrushed knots, and he’s tucked up under the blankets too, his large puffy jacket draped on the headrest of the bed.

“Oh.” Percy’s head pounds, and he looks around, then looks down. He’s tied to a chair, with a blanket draped over his bottom half like Chiron has in his human form. He can’t see his legs, but when he tests he figures out they’re tied down too. He looks back up at them. “Right, I was taking a nap after the picnic.” Nico sighs.

“C’mon, Perseus, you gotta wake up,” Clovis gently tells him.

“You’re right.” Nico blinks at him, dark eyes narrowed. “I gotta wake up. It’s uncool to fall asleep during a picnic."

“I _told you_ he wouldn’t be easy,” Nico complains to Clovis, but Clovis just holds up a hand to silence him, peering at Percy inquisitively.

“No, Perseus. You must _wake up._” And Percy takes a sharp inhale of breath, leaning forward in his bonds.

“You- You- You-” Percy sputters, face going ruddy with rage.

Clovis just nods.

“You can’t make me,” Percy tells him, voice all low and dangerous. “You can’t make me wake up.”

Nico groans. “You have to face reality eventually, Perseus! You can’t just stay there forever!”

“I can try.”

There’s a rumbling far away as Percy reaches out and _pulls,_ and Clovis looks disappointed. The water Percy is pulling from the lake reaches the cabin eventually, sweeping away the doorway with the force of a hurricane, and Percy feels the water climb up to his eyes with the two boys looking completely unfazed and Percy-


	28. Chapter 28

\- wakes up.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Annabeth teases, her hair spilling off her shoulders and into his face. 

“How long was I out?”

“Barely three minutes.” She presses her fingertips against Percy’s, and for a moment he sees _oh god annabeth why are your nails so sharp (all the better to tear you apart with my dear!!!!)_ but then he blinks and it’s back to normal, his hands still curled around the glass of lemonade. Grover laughs.

“Can we have those cupcakes now?” Juniper asks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lotus Eater Machine Achievement Unlocked!


	29. Chapter 29

Rachel comes to their house for a third time. She takes the second painting down and puts up a third. Annabeth, who stomped around the house in a rage and texted Rachel like a million angry texts after she came home and found the second one hung up, slams the bedroom door shut with enough force to rattle the windows. “These paintings are really getting to Annabeth, Rach. They’re… they’re not right,” he tells her, biting his lip as he stops himself from going to comfort Annabeth right away. She likes to be left alone when she’s in one of her fits; she’ll come to him.

Rachel just stares at him stony-faced and taps her belt buckle rhythmically - it’s the same color as the blue hairbrush she threw at Kronos, and just eccentric enough to be the thing your eye is first drawn to now that she’s wearing a more casual outfit. “These paintings are _important,_ Percy,” she explains like he’s a child. “You knew that when you met me. I’m not going to argue with you on this.”

“Rachel. We don’t want them,” Percy replies firmly.

She narrows her eyes at him - they were always that green, right? - and says with a wispy voice, “Take the fucking painting, Percy Jackson.” And Rachel smiles sharply at him and flounces out with all the energy of a newborn puppy.

When Annabeth doesn’t come back, Percy falls backward until his butt hits the couch, and he just stares at the painting until his eyes are dry and droopy.

Painting Percy bares his teeth, Annabeth hunched over animalistically next to him. Their eyes, once greygreen, are flooded with the speckled red color that are the tell of a monster about to strike. 

There’s a corpse in the background, head ripped from the body and legs bent at an unnatural angle. It kind of looks like Rachel herself.

Percy rubs at his eyes, but exhaustion paws at him, dragging him down into the softness of the pillows. He needs to get Rachel to stop bringing them, why won’t Rachel stop bringing them. He yawns and his jaws cracks and that’s it. He’s out like a light, drool already trickling from his mouth the minute his head hits the cushions.


	30. Chapter 30

When his eyes open again, he’s on the ground in a crouching position, blinking in the face of the unexpected sun. He slowly stands, and a heavy force connected to him by the hand rises up with him. “Percy,” his other half groans, the hand not connected to him pressing against their temple. “Percy, where are we?”

When Percy looks to the side, he sees her, Annabeth, the woman who looks just like him. She’s got the same eyes, a startling mixture of grey and green lapping gently against each other like waves. She’s got the same paling skin, with scales bright red patterned on her neck and around the eyes. She’s got the same hair that’s flat and dirty and matted with blood and golden dust, obviously long unwashed and unbrushed. She’s got a large scar from just past her hairline to the bridge of her nose, aging and not properly treated, the skin marred and healed over awkwardly.

They both have burn marks on their hands, old and healed but then immediately covered in more burns. The skin layers are worn down, almost to the bone, but the skin that _is_ there feels intensely and wrongly new. “I don’t know,” Percy says slowly. “I don’t know.” Her claws dig into his hand nervously, the crescent-shapes pushing in deep past the burn wounds. He doesn’t even wince.

“I’m so hungry,” she says, voice wobbling like she’s about to cry.

“Then let’s go eat,” he replies, and they walk along, heavy footsteps and favored legs and all.


	31. Chapter 31

“Do you smell that?” Annabeth asks after they’ve been walking for near an hour. Percy doesn’t feel tired, but his hunger has certainly grown. His stomach aches, and he’s pretty sure there was a hole in his stomach once that healed over. “Food,” she whispers.

“I can smell it,” he assures her. “Like the Indian food we had on your birthday.”

Annabeth frowns. “When was my birthday again?”

Heat. Hot. He remembers the spice mingling with the swelter in the air, but it feels so long ago, so endless. Percy’s mouth is dry. “Summer. Just like mine.”

“Right. The Indian food.”


	32. Chapter 32

The scent leads them to a young figure curled asleep in a ball.

Annabeth makes a noise akin to choking, and Percy squeezes her hand tightly.

Her hair is long and draped over her shoulder, the dark brown standing out starkly against the bright yellow clothing she’s wearing, all shimmery and golden. Percy clicks his tongue in disapproval. “Back in my day, any good, self-respecting young demigod knew not to wear such flashy clothing unless they _wanted_ monsters to come.”

And Annabeth grabs his head and, with gentle force, makes him look at her. “You can smell that she’s a demigod?” She asks, and that’s when Percy falters, his eyes widening just a bit. Because she’s right. He can.

“Oh,” he says, and he sounds like he’s underwater. Annabeth sighs.

“I’m so hungry,” she mumbles, and then kisses him deeply.


	33. Chapter 33

Their talking wakes her up, and they can hear the shriek of a sword being unsheathed and Annabeth and Percy turn to look at her in tandem and she _yells in fear and-_

Percy sees red.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for cannibalism (does it count as cannibalism if youre no longer human?) and minor gore.

The next thing he knows, he’s kneeling on the ground, Annabeth next to him like she has been and will be forever and always. There are clinging pieces of raw meat between his fingers, and there is the coppery taste of blood coating his mouth. Annabeth’s claws rake across the rib bones of the demigod to rip apart more meat to shove into her mouth, and he shrugs before leaning down and tearing into the flesh like he’s eating a steak. Extremely rare.

“Eat with some dignity, man. Gods.” Annabeth’s eyes are twinkling with a renewed energy, and he grins at her, teeth sharp as a piranha’s pushing into his lips. He doesn’t bleed through. 

“You’re one to talk!” He laughs, and intertwines their fingers together, both hands sticky with dark red human blood. “I love you,” Percy tells her, and he does. He does. He’d give up worlds for her, dominate worlds for her. He’d hang all the stars in the sky and look at her and ask if there was anything else that needed doing. He’d marry her a thousand times, a million times, and he would mean the vows every single time. His heart beats for her, with her, the organs pumping together in unison in a single crowing song.

“I love you too,” Annabeth says softly, and he knows she’d do all the same for him.


	35. Chapter 35

And Percy wakes up in his bed, in the dark, and he panics for just a moment, but then he feels Annabeth shift next to him, and when he turns his head, she’s working on her laptop, pencil in her mouth.

When she feels his eyes on her, she spits her pencil out and asks, still looking at her laptop, "Bad dream?"

"Yeah," he replies, voice still muddled with sleep. "Something like that. Did you have one too?"

"Probably the same dream, yeah. That's why I'm working on this, so it'll hopefully get my mind off of it. It's just drafts right now, but we're actually looking into building that school," Annabeth says. He just watches her for a moment before he tears his eyes away and looks at the ceiling.

It's silent, except for the occasional typing of Annabeth's laptop, before she finally sighs. "It was scary, wasn't it? That feeling of control yet losing control."

"Yeah," Percy admits. "I haven't felt anything like that in a- In a long time."

"Well, the good news is that I promise-" Percy looks over at her and catches her gaze, her eyes filled with a righteous gray fire as she smiles at him. "-that we will never be those creatures."

"Yeah? You swear on the River Styx?" He teases, and although she doesn't answer, Annabeth grins knowingly at him, and he is comforted and fiercely in love with this girl, his wife, his best friend.


	36. Chapter 36

There are several superstitions regarding birds (classification: aves) surrounding a variety of fortunes and prophecies.

If a bird poops on your head, it foretells good luck (just… not right at that moment). If you kill an albatross, next time you sail, you will get lost at sea. Wearing the feather of a wren killed on New Year’s Day will prevent one from drowning.

Sparrows carry the souls of the dead.

Seeing an owl during the daytime brings bad luck.

A bird that flies into a house foretells an important message. However, if the bird dies, this foretells death.


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning 4 animal death

A few weeks after Percy’s dream, a bird flies in through the open bedroom window, startling Annabeth out of her knitting. Percy is off in the kitchen making them lunch when he hears the loud wailing call of, “PERCYYYYY!” and like an obedient, god-hating husband, he checks in on his darling wife.

“What?” He asks when he sticks his head through the opening, and she feverishly points at the window, hopping foot to foot. “Is it a spider that you need me to kill?”

“No,” Annabeth whispers, peering at the thing as Percy comes over to her. “It’s not a spider, exactly,” and she bites her lip as Percy finally looks at the spot she was pointing and says, “Oh.”

At the windowsill, crowing pathetically in broken little caws, is an inky black raven with a mangled wing. The feathers are ripped apart, revealing white wing bone, and Percy has no idea how the little guy is still alive. Annabeth gently brings the protesting bird into her cupped hands, asking, “What do we do? We can heal it, right?” in hushed reverence.

And Percy places a soft hand on her shoulder, her lower lip wobbling something fierce. Birds are dinosaurs that shook the apocalypse off of their backs, shaking the crumbling infrastructures and culture that made up old animal society, and there are birds that drink nectar and fly faster than heartbeats and break the necks of their prey before impaling it and eating it. It’s hard to remember, seeing this sad little creature clash in color against Annabeth’s hands with healed-over burns. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do, Annie,” Percy admits. “I think we just have to let them die.”

She sniffs and nods, sitting the bird back down in the sunlight. He wonders what she’s thinking, not for the first time. Because he loves Annabeth, so much, and he knows her so well, like an extension of his own being, but there will always be parts of her that surprise Percy. The first scar that she ever got that he only found out about before sex. Her hatred of oranges. The famous prank war she got in with the Stolls - and _beat them in,_ and the teasing smile when he gaped at her after she told him the story, where she said, “You don’t know _everything_ about me, Seaweed Brain.”

“A couple of days before the battle of Manhattan, a raven flew in the Athena cabin door when one of my siblings came inside, landed on my bed, and died in front of me,” she finally tells him, voice cracking. “And the stupid Apollo cabin was like, _having a bird fly into your home and die means someone is going to die soon._ And I know it's a myth, like a made-up myth, not the kind we deal with, but I already knew the Great Prophecy was coming to fruition and-” Annabeth takes in a deep breath. One thing Percy _does_ know is that Annabeth, in all their time, has completely refused to talk about what she felt leading up to his sixteenth birthday and thinking he was going to die.

So, Percy finally concludes, “I don’t like ravens. But I do like you,” and smiles (what he hopes is) reassuringly at her, and when she smiles back, the two of them stay together and watch the life slowly fade from the bird’s little body, creaking and crying the whole way out.


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for uh. for minor violence at the end

“Oh hey, awesome!” Percy says dryly, and he would fold his arms if he had the freedom to move them. “It’s you guys again, just what I needed!”

“I don’t really want to see you either, Perseus, but I guess we both have to deal!” Nico replies from where he’s tossing coins into the fountain. This time, this dream session, they’re in the Poseidon cabin, with its glowing walls, bronze Hippocampi adorning the ceiling, and mystical sea plants in the windows. The fountain hasn’t been sliced in half or repaired with gold like it had after the battle of Manhattan, and Nico’s appearance is even younger than last time - maybe twelve or thirteen years old. Percy never knew Clovis when he was fifteen, but he would guess the guy looks something like he does then, staring in disapproval at Percy.

“You left us,” Clovis says accusingly, pointing a finger at Percy, the tip curled over into a witch’s finger.

“Hey Mystique, nice finger,” Percy comments because this is a dream and nothing matters. Clovis frowns and looks confused by his own hands.

“Clovis accidentally got his finger almost bitten off when he was fighting with the Romans and their evil allies,” Nico helpfully calls out. Clovis’s frown deepens. “This genius just forgot when he was manifesting the form that the finger didn’t have to be healed until he was much older.”

“Well, it’s not like Perseus knew Clovis back then! I had nothing to go on but what he would think he looked!” The thing wearing Clovis’s face complains, the finger shifting back into straightness without much fanfare. Percy raises an eyebrow.

“So, I was right? you two _aren’t_ Nico and Clovis come to speak to me via dream and you're just stealing their faces?” Not-Clovis curses and not-Nico covers his mouth with his hand.

“Oops. Did I say that?” Not-Nico asks, his voice suddenly not at all Nico-like, turning higher and crisper. 

Percy shrugs, his hands tugging against the ropes to make a very restrained what-can-you-do kind of gesture and says, “Listen, fellas, this has been very fun, but I think you’re forgetting that I’m not as stupid as everybody thinks I am,” and not-Clovis sighs, sitting down on one of the bunk beds harshly.

“We know you aren’t, Perseus,” not-Clovis replies, rubbing at his temples. “And that’s what makes this whole thing so difficult! You’ve encountered a Lotus situation with the hotel and casino before-”

“That’s why I’m here!” Not-Nico interrupters cheerily.

“-and you easily left. _You_ were the one to convince your companions, Grover Underwood and Annabeth Chase, to leave with you and re-enter the true world!” Not-Clovis continues without giving not-Nico much mind. “This is why this situation is so baffling! You are fully aware you aren’t living in reality, and yet you continue to stay anyways, even refusing our compulsions for you to awaken!”

And that’s when Percy gets mad. Just like last time, when these two chucklefucks tried to tell him he needed to wake up. So Percy stands up, the ropes easily slipping off of his body now that he wants them free, and the two of them blink at Percy dumbly, as if they hadn’t quite realized he could do that. But the thing is, Percy isn’t just good at spotting a deception - he’s good at manipulating his world around him too. Sometimes, even when he doesn't want it to, it really _does_ feel like a dream, and not in the good way. In the way that leaves time and distance irrelevant, wiped and smeared like paint; there, watch it go, watch the colors swirl and the days slide away. He’s learned to keep his head in check, make sure he doesn’t mix his blues and greens and reds and golds and greys up too much, at least not without either his or Annabeth's direction.

Percy takes a menacing step forward, the two scooting back when they suddenly realize they’ve trapped themselves in a dream with a feral animal - a monster from the depths of Tartarus. “Is that it? You’re confused why I won’t wake up?” Percy asks with a flat voice and crazy eyes, pupils wide. “Then let me make it abundantly clear to you.”

They look startled when the discarded ropes bind them in place at Percy’s command, and he takes another step closer to not-Clovis, and he can feel his body changing from his skin to his pulsating organs deep inside his flesh, the heart pumping and pumping and pumping like the fearful staccato of a choir. Percy hunches over Clovis, his teeth bared and asks, “I have to be like this anyways. Tell me, if you had to choose, which would you pick: the one where you’re a mindless monster, but at least you get to dream you’re living a better life while your body moves without you, or the one where you have to face yourself and what you've become?” And not-Clovis, whatever he is behind that disguise, whimpers when Percy's face gets too close to his own. “I'm not going back to Tartarus,” Percy says blankly. “I won't. You can't make me.”

And then, he bites not-Clovis’s head off in one swift chomp, swallowing without chewing, the aerial spray of blood suddenly coating his face in hot blood and not-Nico screams shrilly and Percy-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this an awkward note to end on but i didnt realize i was writing the gravity falls episode where they go into mableland except with more violence and domesticity until i was practically over. including the inclusion of dippy fresh


	39. Chapter 39

-wakes up.

“I hate liars,” Percy mutters as he rubs his aching temples, a horrible headache formed in the front of his head. He's not sleeping right because of these stupid dreams.

“Then it's a shame we were born to Gods,” is Annabeth's deadpan reply, and Percy cracks up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick programming note! some of upcoming chapters may be a little late due to irl shit going down (aka finals/end of semester/clinical depression) it hopefully wont be too long, just know if that im late delivering its not a big deal
> 
> and since im here, regarding comments from yesterdays chapter: dw percy and annabeth are safe and happy and together and not monsters and are definitely happy and together and safe.. *eyes flit to lotus eater machine tag* BUT ARE THEY


	40. Chapter 40

Tyson makes a few semi-regular visits to Camp Half-Blood and New Greece when he can get time off. Ever since the Titan war, this is basically whenever he asks for it, but Tyson actually enjoys his job, so. He visits a month in spring, a month in summer, and a month in fall, usually bringing specially forged weapons and hippokampoi. Tyson doesn’t come in the winter, though.

Percy and Annabeth never liked the winter. He's glad it hasn't stuck, except for occasional Thanksgivings and Christmases and Winter Solstices, cherry-picked to be whenever he wants, which isn't often. Sure, it makes the aging come out a little wonky when faced with the calendar year, but it's not like it matters _too_ much.

They wait patiently at the edge of the water, warm under the sun, their toes dipped ever-so-slightly in. He’s supposed to come today, at least, that’s what he said. Unfortunately, he’s just about as great as grasping time like Percy and Annabeth are, which is to mean, he’s not very wonderful at regulating his schedule. 

“He’s late,” Annabeth murmurs after the second hour passes and the third time they’ve walked around the camp inspecting new residents working on their fighting techniques. It’s almost time for dinner. They’ve got striped bass just waiting for them at home, three extra ready and waiting to be cooked just for Tyson. “He usually comes before sunset, but, well…”

“We can Iris-message him,” Percy suggests. “See what’s holding him up.”

She chews nervously on her lower lip, just watching the ripples that form from the campers out on canoes. “He’ll come when he comes, I don’t want to—” Percy isn’t quite sure what she would say after that, because Annabeth cuts herself off with a sigh. “Yeah, let’s just get back to the house, message him, see what’s up,” she finally concludes, so he wraps his arms around her and thinks about the thirteen-year-old she used to be, the one that just _hated_ Tyson, and gleefully wonders what she’d think of herself now, worrying over a cyclops.

(It isn’t even that big of a deal, they just startle Tyson out of his work and he goes, “Percy! Annabeth!” loud enough to shatter their eardrums, and then he explains about how he forgot to request time off because he was focused on some new part of daddy’s castle and secret weapons and he promised he would come during fall and show Annabeth his blueprints. She greatly appreciates this. Percy tugs on her curls, much less pronounced from when she was a teenager, and smiles.)


	41. Chapter 41

The next dream, not-Nico and Percy sit across from each other at a primly set up table, not-Nico scooping sugar into his teacup, white enough that it seems to absorb the color around it. Percy’s cup is black enough it dims everything around it. Percy glares at him, then at the drink set in front of him, next to his plate of finger sandwiches.

“What’s in this?” He pokes at the cup with suspicion. Not-Nico takes a drink.

“Mine’s tea. Yours is pomegranate juice. C’mon, drink up.” And Not-Nico gestures to his cup in a way that makes Percy push it away.

“I’m still not sure if these are faerie rules or something,” Percy informs him. “And you know how they say to never drink or eat things given to you by faeries. Besides - pomegranate? Bad things deal with pomegranates in our family.” Not-Nico smiles ruefully.

The Athena cabin, usually covered in books and stray weaving projects and trash (except for cabin inspections) has been cleared out, everything in cluttered piles on beds. Annabeth’s laptop, inherited from Daedalus, sits open on her bunk just up above and next to them. It’s opened to a blank word document, the cursor blinking in and out, waiting for someone to write in it.

“So you decided you needed to drag me back here after the whole incident with the thing hosting Clovis, did you? You don’t need to be taught the same lesson, do you?” Not-Nico laughs, shaking his head and setting his cup down.

Not-Nico bares his teeth in a wide grin, resting his chin in his hands. “I’m not quite as… bold as my brother. I know my limits. Obviously, your beheading didn’t kill him, but it did temporarily banish him from this in-between realm, and of course, wonderfully embarrassed him. He has been banned from coming back here until my say so.”

“Huh. Well, who’s your brother?”

He laughs, one finger curling in front of his mouth in a shushing motion. “That would be telling. Anyways, even though I’m not like my brother, I am still here to try and convince you two come back into reality. I’d like to have a real, honest heart-to-heart about it,” and Percy swallows, staring at his teacup in front of him.

“I don’t want to,” Percy says softly. “I don’t want to go back and I don’t want to talk about it.”

“_Please,_ Perseus.” Not-Nico sighs, his hands dropping flat against the table, the humor leaving from his voice. “I need to know and you need to talk about it. Please. You have to come home, back to reality. It’s not- You’ve just been here so long.”

“How long _has_ it been?”

Not-Nico purses his lips. “Fifteen years.”

“Huh,” Percy says again. “How’s my mom? I presume the world didn’t end without us.”

“Of course not. Nico, the real Nico, is a very capable young man. He and the others figured out a way to exchange years of their lives to... close the doors since you and Annabeth were indisposed. Your mother is alright, as alright as she can be. She and Paul did have another child. The name is Estelle too. Details, real details, just seem to bleed through.”

“I’m glad,” Percy tells him and he is.

“But the thing _is,_” not-Nico stresses, “you can’t keep existing here, in this world between the humans and monsters! Every moment, every _second_ you two are down there, there are horrible consequences in the world up above. If I could just explain to you what-”

And Percy’s hands grip the dining cloth coating the table and interrupts, “No. Shut up. Just shut up! I don’t care! I don’t want to hear it! We’re _happy_ here! It’s exactly the kind of life we fantasized about to get us through the initial walk through Tartarus! We just want to be left alone, and the unfortunate part of that means that we do not care about what the hell needs our “assistance,” get it? I destroyed your stupid brother, banished him, whatever. I get it, you gods aren’t happy that your precious heroes can’t be called on anymore, and you’re confused why we won’t leave. I get it! There are parts that make me _get it!_ I don’t like that my mom won’t look me in the face anymore. I don’t like that Rachel keeps dropping creepy paintings at our home. I don’t like that Nico, _my_ Nico, not just the body you’re possessing, doesn’t like me because he can sense that there’s something wrong with us, with me! But here, I can at least expect to be _left alone. Leave us alone!_”

Percy finally stops, panting for breath, tears welled up in his eyes that he didn’t notice. He didn’t notice that he had stood up either. Not-Nico sits, staring at him, wide-eyed, his teacup clenched in his hands. Percy sits down and sighs heavily, planting his face into his hands as he makes not-Nico say the next word.

The silence is long, and he focuses on breathing evenly when finally, not-Nico asks in a soft voice: “What do you want, Perseus? What do you need?”

“I want, and I need to be left alone,” Percy replies quietly. “I need time. I need a life with Annabeth. I don’t need or want a bunch of gods questioning my life choices. I know none of you know what a “quiet life” is, but that’s all I want with Annabeth, with my life. I need to keep as human as possible.”

Not-Nico frowns, swirling more and more sugar into his tea which somehow stays the same inky brown. “That’s the one thing I don’t want to give you. I can’t allow you to hide away in here for much longer. Well, there, I should say. The world you reside in and where we are now are separate places, on the very edge of your own world, where my brother and I’s domains intersect,” he explains, which Percy ignores, because _want_ means that he could easily give them time, he just hates seeing them happy.

“Not our problem,” Percy tells him firmly, and not-Nico scowls like he’s considering just turning him to dust, all politeness crumbling in his frustration.

“Fine. On your own head, so be it. I will grant you time, Perseus. But remember, the muzak always ends eventually,” not-Nico warns, and he snaps his fingers and the world goes white behind Percy’s eyes and Percy-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this feels like an awkward chapter. its necessary but also it feels jerky bc both of them are being honest but also hiding shit or whatever all the time constantly. ignore me lol


	42. Chapter 42

-wakes up.

He sits up blearily, his eyes still glazed with sleep. There is drying drool on the table, and Annabeth squints at him with concern. “The dreams are getting worse,” she asks, though it sounds like a statement. Percy nods anyways. “You think they’d leave you alone.”

“You’re getting them too, right?” He fell asleep on one of the bakery tables while they were having a quiet conversation before getting to work. It’s too early, on the later side of four a.m.. Still, he has a good track record of staying awake at this part of the morning routine now. Dreams sometimes come during naturally occuring sleep, but they show up more during unnatural naps. Annabeth frowns.

“Yeah. Not as many as you,” she admits, “but they still happen occasionally. I fell asleep during a meeting the other day, and woke up yelling my head off. My coworkers are very willing to give me leeway, considering who I am, my past, and what my secondary job is.” She smiles softly at Percy, just for a moment. “I just chalked it up to monster nightmares - which it technically is.”

“Who do you see? Mine is Nico. And Clovis, but, well, y’know how I get when I get angry.”

Annabeth laughs, all smiles, all coy. “I’m fully aware, Mr. Chase. I see Nico and Clovis too, but suspiciously, Clovis didn’t show up to the last one, and Nico just tried to therapize me. You have anything to do with any of that?”

“No idea, I’m sure,” he replies cooly, pushing out of his seat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are pastries to bake.” But first, Annabeth grabs his shirt and pulls him down into a long kiss, time and softness and neediness communicated through it all.


	43. Chapter 43

It started when they woke up in their beds after climbing out of Tartarus. Percy could feel it was wrong in the air, and he clung to Annabeth’s hand. He told her when she woke up a few hours later, both of them holed up in the medical ward, drinking blueberry smoothies. Or, well, Annabeth was drinking her smoothie and Percy was methodically stabbing at his with his staw.

“This place isn’t real,” he had said, and Annabeth had looked at him concerned and quizzical, then at the surrounding all around them, and then went, “Yeah. I wouldn’t have noticed before, but yeah. You’re very good at this,” and he had laughed and said, “I know.”

“How _did_ you know?” Annabeth had asked later, curled up in the sunshine and salty sea air on the Argo II. 

“I could just tell. It was just- It just instantly reminded me of the Lotus Hotel. It’s this smell, and this shimmer in the air. Slowly dying flowers, like, very slowly dying. Do you have any idea why we’re here instead of a real place, instead of the real world?” And Annabeth had closed her eyes, the bruises deep underneath her near-white fluttering eyelashes.

“I’ll figure it out eventually. Athena always figures it out.” Percy had kissed her forehead, wonderfully reminiscing about the cocky genius twelve-year-old she used to be and Percy always looked up to. _Athena always has a plan_ still played in his head, with a voice well-worn from the one Annabeth had back then, almost on the fringes of thinking about starting to change, but a voice hormone therapy eventually moved into the warm melody it was then. “Until then, I just want to try and live nicely. Live selfishly. Live well.”

“Okay,” he had said. “That’s all I want too. I’m tired. I’m tired.”

“Let’s sleep, then.” And Annabeth’s hands were warm against his back.

And later, when they finally figured out how _easy_ it was for them to slip their hands into the golden falling sand grains of the dream, the little detail-work made up of shadows and the faltering electrical impulses between thoughts, Annabeth looked giddy, excited to see exactly what she could _do_ with a whole world and asked, “How long are you going to stay with me?”

The time flowing in the air around them felt like water. And Percy replied to her, “Forever,” and they eliminated all need for gods in that world except for entertainment and glorified help, the way gods had been treating them for years, because they _became gods._


	44. Chapter 44

“Would you,” Percy begins one night (they’re both on the edge of sleep, but both know it’s an awfully dry night. Neither would get any rest, even if they did fall asleep. Their most-important-but-not-pressing talks began there, under the hush cover of nightfall, the concepts too delicate or too hard or a little too much of both to be started at with full awareness), “ever want to have kids?” And he can feel Annabeth blink in surprise, her eyelashes fluttering against where her face is tucked into his neck.

The easy, obvious answer would be for her to retort, _would you?_ and he would continue and she would listen and eventually they’d get both sides of the story, eventually. But this time, Annabeth just thinks for a long moment, and then replies, “Yes. Absolutely,” and that’s that.


	45. Chapter 45

They may not know their own ages, but in the back of their heads, they both knew they wanted kids, a family, a real proper family one day. In the early morning when they get up for the bakery and to go over Annabeth’s itinerary for the day, they strategize while Percy makes pie crust. Everything between them is a battle plan, and babies are no exception.

“If we want a biological child,” Annabeth suggests, even though her face twists up into horror and disgust, “we could both go off hormone therapy and see if we’ve kept any fertility.” He snorts, flour flying with the force of his mixing bowl. Her face, contorted with contempt for the idea, makes up his sentiments exactly.

“Well, we probably won’t have any trouble with fertility if we do want to do that, considering our heritage,” Percy replies dryly. “But I don’t want to see what happens if we both go off hormones for- that long. I don’t feel like accidentally growing more breast tissue, and I quite like growing facial hair, though you make me shave it off. Plus, being pregnant?” He shudders. 

She nods, relieved expression clear on her face even though there was no way Percy was going to agree to that. “Then, there’s obviously adoption. Lots of foster kids, just waiting to find a good home. Maybe it would be better not to bring your Posiedon blood into the whole family tree anyway.”

“They’d have to be able to cope with living in a city with a bunch of demigods,” Percy points outs, and she nods, taking that into careful deliberation as well.

They stew in that conundrum for some time, Percy carefully making pies and Annabeth helping alongside him to prepare cookie batter, when Annabeth stops in the middle of mixing in peanut butter chips to Percy’s peanut-chocolate chip cookie mix and says, “There’s this kid, well, baby that got dropped off at camp the other day. Nobody knows where she came from or who dropped her off, they just found her propped up next to the tree. She looks a year old at most, if that. She got in, though, so. They’ve been looking for someone to take her in while everything gets figured out.”

Percy laughs, shaking his head in disbelief. “Of course. Tomorrow lets try and go check her out.” Annabeth scrapes cookie dough off of her spatula, and he decides, “We’re going to be great parents. I promise.”

The next day, Annabeth takes the day off and Percy keeps the shop sign turned to closed as they head down to camp, where the baby had been held for the previous week. Deep in the hallsof the infirmary, they find a dead-eyed Will Solace holding a weepy little baby in his bouncing arms.

“Percy, Annabeth,” he begins in a whispery startled voice when he finally notices that they’ve come in. He looks down at the baby, back up at them, and breaks into a grin. “So, can I assume you’ve come to meet Lani?”

Lani was found in a basket next to the tree, Peleus, the snorting, protective dragon curled up around her and breathing huffily like she was the golden fleece still dangling in the tree. The note, just a small piece of folded paper tucked into the inside of the fuzzy yellow blanket she was wrapped tightly in, was the only thing with her that could show any sense of identity. That, and the fact that she got in without problem, indicating she had at least some form of magic in her. 

“She’s so cute,” Annabeth coos, gently brushing the short ringed curls on the top of her head, the color the unnatural shade of black only demigods can have, while Percy holds her carefully in his arms, staring at the little baby like she is the answer to all the universe’s questions.

“She’s a handful,” Will replies with a chuckle, running a hand through his hair. “Babies, in general, are a handful, but she’s real energetic. Cries a lot. I usually have one of my siblings taking care of her, but I always liked babies. Have you two had any experience with them before?”

“My parents had Estelle when I was around seventeen, so I’m pretty prepared to deal with babies,” Percy assures, and Annabeth keeps cooing at Lani, paying the boys no mind, so he laughs and continues for her. “And Annabeth was, admittedly pretty young when she ran away, but her step-brothers were babies when she left. Plus she always helped me babysit Estelle when she got the chance.”

“Do you want to take her home with you? Try it out? I mean, it would probably have to be tomorrow or the day after, so you have time to get baby stuff. Well, baby food. We can lend you diapers and blankets and all that.”

“No need,” Annabeth answers, pulling her head up and away from Lani’s squishy little baby face. “We both took the day off, so we can run by the stores and grab baby food. Have you guys been giving her breast milk? Neither I nor Percy can exactly breastfeed, so…”

“Nah. Just formula. And even then, she doesn’t need to subside solely on formula because even if we aren’t quite sure of her actual age, she’s at least a year old.” Will raises an eyebrow when Annabeth watches her with this delighted expression on her face. “What’s up, Chase?”

“I always forget how cute babies are.” Percy shakes with laughter. Lani giggles and gurgles in his arms. Will rolls his eyes and goes to grab diapers and formula. Her eyes are large and bright and right in the blue-green color of the sky’s reflection against the lake.

And then, weeks later, many weeks later, nearly two months later, Grover comes to their door unexpectedly, looking grim and serious and just a little bit surprised. Percy yawns, scrubbing at his hair. Lani staying there with them for the past months has made him more exhausted, and they spend sleepless nights and long days working and looking into formalizing adoption. 

“You look like shit, man,” Grover offers when he’s faced with sort-of-new-parent Percy Jackson. Percy breaks into a large smile and replies, “Yeah, I know,” and brings him in and makes him a cup of coffee so he can figure out what his best friend is doing at their doorstep without warning.

Grover sips at his coffee, jittery in a way that has nothing to do with caffeine, and confesses “The nature spirits are gossiping again. All the naiads are whispering there’s a new child of the sea around at Camp Half-Blood. I was just wondering if you knew anything about it.” Percy’s eyebrows raise in surprise, bobbing like a ship on water.

“If there _is_ a sibling of mine arriving at camp, they haven’t been claimed, or I would never hear the end of it.” Percy’s hands curl around his own coffee cup nervously as Grover’s sniffs the air, pulling his pure-black sludge behind his teeth. “Since you came all this way, you want to say hi to Annabeth? She’s sleeping with the baby, but I’m sure she would want to see you,” and Grover watches him as he stands up from the table with sharp eyes.

“The baby?” He repeats, and Percy grins with all his teeth, throwing an arm around Grover’s shoulders.

“Yeah, G-man. The baby. Her name is Lani. This little one-year-old left in the borders by the tree. Me and Annabeth have been doing the paperwork to fully adopt her. She’s the cutest little thing you’ll ever see, and you knew Annabeth when she was twelve.” Grover knocks back the rest of his coffee and follows Percy into the bedroom, eyes shifting around the whole apartment carefully baby-proofed. 

Annabeth and Lani are curled up in bed, under the old checkered blanket they’ve had for years, and Percy goes and gently shakes his wife awake, murmuring reassurances to her as she wakes up with a groan, Lani held tight to her chest. When she does finally blink awake, she glares daggers at Percy before she catches Grover in the doorway and Annabeth carefully sits up.

“Grover,” she says, her surprise completely undisguised thanks to her sleepiness. “You’re here? Percy didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“He didn’t know,” Grover replies softly, and his pupils, dark in his eyes, dart to Lani’s thankfully still sleeping form. “Is that the baby?” And she beams, the kind that stretches so far it wrinkles the eyes, holding Lani up and out to him as he comes over at sits on the bed. He takes Lani and curls his arms around her, bouncing her gently in his grasp, and his expression shifts from bemusement and confusion to concern and confusion.

“You said she was just found next to the tree all on her own? And she hasn’t been claimed yet?” He asks carefully, staring at her with something akin to scrutinization.

“She’s too young to be claimed,” Annabeth confirms. “She will be in the future, obviously, thanks to Percy. Lani was being cared for at the infirmary, and I thought it would be nice to check her out, try it out. We always thought about having kids when we were older.”

“And we’re older now,” Percy finishes, sliding next to her on the bed. Grover nods, like what she just said confirmed his great theories, and he looks up at them sharply with a serious expression on his face and twists his body so Lani, drooling slightly in her sleep, is faced towards them.

“Yeah, okay. So, I wasn’t sure when I smelled the place, but it stinks of- of Posiedon aura. Like, more than usual. And I was just telling Percy, but there’s all these rumors going around where- and-” Grover sighs. “This is so hilarious in retrospect, because of course it happens to you guys, to us.” He smiles brightly. “So, Percy, this is very likely to be your sister. How’s your morning going?”

And you know what? Grover’s right. Of course it would happen to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh.. ugh.. so many chapters.. so many words..
> 
> anyways this hc isnt just limited to this story. i always found the concept of them adopting an abandoned unclaimed demigod baby from like fucking new rome to get around percy being pregnant or bringing even a small percentage of posiedon blood in em and then... they adopt a fuckinggg CHILD OF POSEIDON ANF PERCYS SIBLING.........


	46. Chapter 46

For Christmas, Lani’s first Christmas ever and Percy and Annabeth’s first Christmas in a very long time, Rachel comes by with Nico in tow and Nico brings Will in tow and Thalia comes over to say hi to her new baby cousin and Grover and Juniper _naturally_ had to join in and it’s a full house, Christmas day. Thalia takes up the baby bag for most of the party, the stupidest grin on her soft forever-fifteen face.

“My little Annabeth’s all grown up with a husband and baby!” She cried when she first brought Annabeth into a tight hug. Even though Percy’s seen her a million times since she first took on the oath, it always messes him up to see how much younger she looks compared to everyone else, especially Annabeth. He remembers her being maid of honor at their wedding, fitted all nice into her suit jacket with lightning bolt pins on the lapels and golden earrings lining up and down both her ears. She took the thing off and tied it around her waist the minute the wedding ended, grinning and tearing up in the hot June sun. “I remember when you were this little shrimp who barely got up to my waist,” she continued, and Annabeth laughed, standing nearly five inches taller than her. 

She then immediately stole their daughter (They had discussions lasting hours, lasting days, whether they wanted to refer to her as their daughter or Percy’s sister. When they went into Camp a few days later with Grover, almost the moment they crossed the threshold the claiming sign of Poseidon appeared, confirming their worries. Will raised an eyebrow at them, sighed, stripped off his rubber gloves and told them, “Well, who better to raise the daughter of Poseidon than the son of Poseidon?” So they kept her, because they were already in love with her and her little baby face and fingers and eyes, but finally, after a long time thinking about it, Percy looked up at Annabeth from over his coffee cup filled with mango juice and said “I think I kind of want to be Dad, not brother,” and she shrugged and that was that) to coo at her in the corner, baby sling wrapped over her chest with Lani curled up and giggling happily and failing to grab her nose piercing.

“What’d you get me, Percy?” Nico asks archly, Will holding one of his hands and Rachel’s arm linked with his other arm. “You know, as your favorite cousin and all that.” (Thalia cries “I think the fuck not!” from across the room and then Annabeth gives her the hairy eyeball treatment for cussing in front of the baby and so loudly at that and she smiles sheepishly.)

“I got you this great party,” Percy responds, spreading his hands at the house, Grover and Juniper nursing red solo cups filled with sparkling cider from the couch. Nico raises an eyebrow. Annabeth comes to his rescue, toting gifts for Nico and Rachel both.

“Sorry we didn’t get you a gift directly, Will. You’ve been such a help with Lani and mellowing Nico out and all.” He grins. Nico rolls his eyes, carefully tearing the wrapping paper off.

“It’s no problem. You just owe me the first slice of the cake after dinner.” The cake he’s referring too, of course, being the vanilla cake Percy had repurposed to a snickerdoodle flavor. A hard bargain indeed, but then Will is quickly engrossed in the now-unwrapped gift in Nico’s grasp: the card game, Superfight, which Nico is confused by and Will and Rachel are delighted by.

Rachel’s gift is a stuffed tiger and an adoption certificate held in her hands, accompanied by a bemused smile. “It’s a donation thing,” Annabeth explains. “It helps protect wildlife. This one, in particular, helps tigers. And you got a stuffed tiger out of it.” Rachel loves it and names her new tiger Jeffery.

And later, a long time later, after dinner and cake and a couple of cups of eggnog and crappy Hallmark movies, with Thalia and Lani passed out on the couch, Grover and Juniper having left sometime after the end of the second movie due to Juniper feeling bad thanks to having been away from her tree for so long, Will sleeps on Nico’s shoulder and Nico and Rachel exchange a Look when the fourth movie ends. Percy is itching to put on a zombie show to counteract the energy of the horrible Christmas movies in the room.

“So-” Rachel’s serving of eggnog sloshes in her cup as she reaches from behind Nico to grab a package as he begins to speak, “-this year, me and Rachel got you a combined gift. I’m sure it’s not as good as last year’s gift but hey, you know how it is.”

Annabeth begins to unwrap it, all tied up in silver paper, as Rachel leans forward conspiratorially, lips twisted up in a smile that indicates there’s something she’s not telling them, and props her head on her hand. “What _was_ last year’s gift, do you remember? I just can’t seem for the life of me to recall what I got you.” Percy’s throat is dry. Her eyebrow quirks up, daring him to answer.

“It’s a mirror,” Annabeth’s voice pulls him out of his panic, his head turning sharply to look at the present. It is indeed a mirror with a golden frame, just begging to be hung up. “You got us a mirror,” she says flatly, staring at the thing in her lap with something akin to confusion and slowly rising panic in her voice. Percy blinks at the thing, and he feels it too.

“I noticed you don’t have any,” Nico replies, his bone-white hand spread tenderly on Will’s knee. The tenderness doesn’t cover up the look in his eyes, somewhat desperate yet determined, waiting to see how they’ll react.

There’s a long pause where they all wait for another to say something, the four of them locked in a silent battle. Finally, Percy swallows and takes the mirror and shoves it under the couch, staring without blinking at the pair of them as he does so. “Thanks for the gift,” Percy tells them coolly, and they smile in tandem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thalia is 5'7, annabeth is 6'0, percy is 6'2
> 
> and ALSO for this i had to google "good christmas gifts for emo adults" but unfortunately it didnt give me the results i wanted so i had to make the gift nico got a board game


	47. Chapter 47

That night, Annabeth wakes up in a cold sweat and then shakes Percy awake, Lani stuck in the middle of them. Percy startles awake, but when he sees the stormy look in her eyes, he doesn’t question her actions, just asks: “You dream of them again?”

“Yeah.” She purses her lips and turns away from him, curling her legs up into her chest. “Still just the fake Nico. He just watched me for the longest time until I broached the topic, asked if he was messing with the real Nico somehow, for some reason. He was all like _bluh bluh the Nico you interact with in the dream world isn’t the “real” Nico_ and I had to keep asking him more and more complicated questions until he finally spits out that he could “influence” Nico.” Annabeth sighs, staring up at the ceiling, and Percy takes this as a cue to grasp her hand in his tightly. “And _then_ he explained that mortals with the sight and other people who were ever in Tartarus can _all_ be somewhat influenced. So Nico, Rachel, and probably your mom are super compromised.”

“Compromised.” Percy laughs. “It’s like we’re spies. Or back in the war.” She sighs again.

“Fake Nico, whoever he is, and Fake Clovis obviously want us to leave this place, abandon our home and safety. It kind of_ is_ a war, if you think about it.” Percy frowns, shutting his eyes tightly. He doesn’t want to think about it. Not like that.

“I kind of want to look in the mirror, just to see if anything will come through,” Percy confesses, and Annabeth squeezes his hand.

“Yeah. I know our subconscious is trying to protect us by making us forget mirrors, but I know what you mean. It’s been eating at me. What if we look like we do in Rachel’s paintings? I mean, we probably do.” She laughs, but it’s sad and brittle. “Or maybe worse.”

“Let’s… We can- We can decide whether or not to look at it in the morning. It’s not like it’s going to disappear in the night. We have time. We have time, I promise.”

“I hope you’re right,” she murmurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for forgetting to post yesterday this chapter sucks and i got asked out 🤪


	48. Chapter 48

It’s missing from under the couch in the morning, and Annabeth’s glare directed at the cushions could probably burn holes through it like cigarettes if she were the child of any other god. “You just had to say it,” she complains.

“It’s not my fault our life is a walking cliche, especially here.” Annabeth looks away from him carefully as she sips at her hot chocolate. “I guess this counts as a sign? Absolutely no mirrors, ever?”

“I guess.” Somewhere, wherever Lani has crawled off to this time, she begins to cry. Percy goes off to find and feed or change her as Annabeth continues to glower at the couch.


	49. Chapter 49

And then it shows up again, tucked in Annabeth’s arms when she comes home from work, wrapped all neat and tidy in a package identical to the one they unwrapped at Christmas and Percy considers it over their dinner of a sheet pan covered in potatoes, sausage, onion, and cheese. Annabeth sips her wine while he thinks, and when he looks at her for help she gives him a very purposeful look like _I unwrapped the last one and I got this thing at work - you decide what to do with it_ and cheers when Lani shoves a little cut-up piece of sausage in her mouth. Percy shovels his own food in via fork rather than tiny baby fist (take that, Lani) and then stands up, pulls a window open, and throws the package out of said window. “It gets the job done,” Annabeth concedes even as she throws him a reproachful look, “but your disposal methods are gauche,” and he snorts and replies “Watch out with that language or in a few years our daughter will be perusing through dictionaries for fun, dyslexia be damned,” and watches her make a face because _she_ was the eight-year-old who read through greek dictionaries for fun.

That’s the first (technically second) time.

The next time, Percy’s at the grocery store when he feels a nearly imperceptible weight get added to his hand-held cart, and when he looks down, the shimmery packaging taunts him. He rolls his eyes, grabs an extra box of Lucky Charms, and places the package back in the cereal’s place, quickly walking away from curious eyes.

The time after that, Annabeth borrows a godly hammer from Hephaestus when they’re working on building a new templetowerforge for him and smashes the thing - found hidden in her message bag of blueprints - to little pieces and she recounts the story to Percy later that night as they try to get Lani to eat anything other than sausage for the fifteenth night in a row. Percy vows to never make sheet pan potatoes-and-sausage again if it warrants this type of results.

The time after that, Rachel Elizabeth Dare leans in the doorway to their apartment with a bored expression on her face, her fire hair tied up in tight braids, and asks them to “Please stop losing this,” and she tries to leave quickly but even Rachel Elizabeth Dare at her wiliest can’t escape a demigod with a frustrated passion. They often let her get away without much struggle, and it’s almost gut-busting hilarious because the surprise on her face just goes to show that whoever came up with the saying _you give them an inch and they’ll take a mile_ was probably also an oracle and probably got a headache from the intensity that is Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

“Quit it,” Annabeth tells her, wagging her finger in her face. “We don’t want to have to deal with magically appearing mirrors on top of everything else.”

“Well, you two are the ones that keep getting rid of it! This is all because you shoved in under the stupid couch!” She huffs and Annabeth huffs back, just as disgruntled.

“I’ll have you know that it disappeared on us first! How are you even doing this?” Rachel just folds her arms tightly and refuses to answer, and eventually, Annabeth gets frustrated and tells her where exactly they’re going to shove the mirror this time. Rachel takes her not-so-graceful cue to leave and Annabeth chucks the mirror at her, Rachel expertly ducking down so it dodges her head and _there’s_ that oracle calm-as-a-clamness. 

When it shows up where the shampoo should be when Annabeth and Percy are collaborating to give Lani a bath (turns out when you’re a baby and nothing matters and you’re the daughter of Poeseidon you can even give a maybe-thirty and incredibly experienced son of Poseidon a run for his money in the controlling water aspect) they decide to finally hang it up.

They unwrap it slowly and carefully, like they’re dealing with Medusa’s head in a box once more, making sure gazes skirt away from the reflective glass. Annabeth bangs a nail through the wall right next to Rachel’s painting. Percy hangs it up with his eyes closed. They throw a blanket over it, and that’s where it stays. Covered up so no one can see in, but still there. Still accepted. It stays.


	50. Chapter 50

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for mild gore and cannibalism of a relative!

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Percy hears not-Nico’s voice say, and he sighs. The next time Percy falls to his pillow, he shoots up on the hill where it’s the perfect spot for watching the Fourth of July fireworks, his back facing his dream assailant.

He starts turning around, massaging his brow. Despite not getting headaches anymore, not-Nico really seems to make a valiant effort to give Percy one. “Look, you said you’d give us time. What happened to that promise? I mean, the thing with Rachel and the mirror, really-” And then he cuts himself off. Because not-Nico wasn’t talking to Percy.

“Yes, aren’t you just the prettiest little thing,” he coos, rocking Lani in his arms. She squeals once, attempting to grab his long, Nico hair in her little baby fists, but he artfully rolls his head back, dodging with a smile. Then, his eyes flit to Percy, still smiling sweetly.

“What are you doing with her?” Percy asks, numb with shock. “Why do you- Why- What are you doing with Lani?”

“You mean a poor baby you’ve weaved into your narrative,” he corrects gently, still smiling. “Lani, as you know her, doesn’t exist.” Not-Nico is soft and sweet with her, but it’s just. It’s not. He shouldn’t have her.

“What are you doing with my daughter?”

Not-Nico cranes his head up to stare at the blue sky, the sun occasionally blotted out by the clouds. The thing is, the darkness with the sun is covered is much darker than it should be, bathing everything in a brassier version of gold. “I sometimes forget how impressive this place is. How impressive you two are when you set your mind to things. I’m impressed.”

“That’s my fucking sister, you fucking- _What in Hades’s name are you doing with Lani!?_” Percy shouts because _why won’t he give him a straight answer._ Rather than waiting for another obscure change, he rushes forwards, pulling Riptide out of his pocket and flinging the cap off without even watching to see where it lands.

He isn’t trying to slice the guy in half, that could hurt her, but Percy goes to grab his throat, flying on some half-baked memory of holding the real Nico by his neck in a dingy cell in the Underworld. However, this time, when Percy goes for his throat, he blinks and not-Nico’s somewhere else.

Percy stumbles and then whips around to see not-Nico again, having shifted places. He’s still smiling. He goes for the creep once again, just to see if he’ll pull that stupid trick again, and, well, he doesn’t pull the exact same thing.

Instead, not-Nico puts up a hand, and Percy freezes in his place. “Bet you didn’t see that one coming,” he says without heat. Percy can’t even move his mouth. He tries to burrow into the threads of the magic he’s using, but not-Nico chides him with a, “No, no. Not yet. You see, I ought to explain myself, huh?”

Percy:

Not-Nico: “Oh, so polite and quiet now, huh? Hey, say nothing if you want me to go on.”

Percy:

Not-Nico: “Great! So, I’ve been trying to be nice. Have been trying to be lenient, to explain simply, to give you a chance to fall into reason. I gave you the option to insert yourself into this narrative. But the thing is, even if you have powers over this dream state, I am more powerful than you will ever be.”

Percy:

Not-Nico laughs. It’s horrible and screechy and doesn’t sound like it should be coming out of a body resembling anything human. Lani doesn’t seem to notice, just keeps cooing and laughing and reaching for something to grab, but to Percy, it’s worse than anything he’s ever heard before. Even if he can’t move to wince, he can feel his ear start to bleed - literally bleed.

“You’re fun like this,” not-Nico continues when he finally stops making that awful noise. “So, I figure, you rebuffed all my offers and all my warnings. So now, you’re not going to get a choice. You’re going to leave, or any possible thing that could happen to Lani? To your sister, your _daughter?_” His grin stretches, wide and cold. “I’m going to make you watch it happen. Clear?”

That’s when his hold on Percy’s limbs recede, and he drops to the ground, panting. The first thing he does is move his hands to his ears and wipes away the trickle of blood going down the sides of his head. The second thing he does is flip not-Nico off. “You’re sick,” Percy spits.

“Okay,” is all the motherfucker says, completely unfazed. His fingers brush through the black tufts of Lani’s hair, and he tilts his head and goes, “Well, since you’re going to be rude to me, why don’t I give you a taste?”

Percy barely has time to breathe, let alone protest, before he’s back where he was, a long time ago. His fingers are coated with congealing blood, and Annabeth is hunched over the body they ate, all those dreams ago, picking meat off of bones more animalistically than she did last time. He’s holding a long stretch of the intestine, and when he follows it down to the body, the face of the golden girl is replaced with Lani’s.

He drops the organ and scrambles back, heart immediately racing. She’s more grown-up looking, sure, but it’s unmistakably _Lani_ whose guts they’re eating. Her rib bones stick out, white and horrible, and Annabeth looks at him through the corner of her eye, gnawing on a large chunk of meat she ripped from the girl’s leg, from _Lani’s_ leg.

“Percy?” She asks around the flesh. “Are you alright?”

The back of his throat is coated in blood. Percy’s chest rises up and down in a panic, quicker and quicker and quicker. What is he doing, what is she doing, Lani’s dead and that’s her body and they’re _eating her and oh my gods-_

“Percy, speak to me, honey. You’re panicking. What’s wrong? Percy. Percy. Percy-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first off? let me say, this is not my fault. this chapter was originally much tamer. this is the _narratives_ fault. the story called for it.
> 
> so, you may be wondering why im sometimes late on chapters, considering i said i had them all written. and i do! im just... horrendously forgetful, and also, i tend to make revisions as the chapters heading out the door. if i dont think a chapter works right, i make changes, and some are bigger than others. the other reason is because im doing other writing! my typical fare is in the long, single chapter, single narrative kinda spiel. (in fact, go read my angel/demon percabeth au!) one good thing about single chapter stuff is i cant be late, because a lot of people never know theyre coming.
> 
> so, as this story kind of chugs along all weirdly (thank you for sticking around) i am also writing single chapter stuff! if youve made it this far, through all these weird terrible chapters, consider this a bonus! im currently working on: A selkie AU that ive been working on since like, September, which is a good indication of how spacey my writing can get; a Percy-joins-Luke AU which im really excited to write; a Nico and Annabeth friendship-fic; a Thalianca vampire AU; and an Annabeth-centric fic set in BOTL during those two weeks Percy was missing!
> 
> so if im late with chapters, unless i explicitly say so, i am not just sitting on my ass, lol. i havent gotten any comments abt it bc u guys are the best, but i just wanted to put it out there.
> 
> anyways, yesterday my school had a snow day! crazy, right?


	51. Chapter 51

-wake up.”

He startles awake in a cold sweat, and there are tears streaming down his face. Hovering above him with concern is Annabeth, her hair pulled up into a ponytail that came loose during the night. She doesn’t have scales or sharp teeth, and she doesn’t even have claws, because when she drapes her hand on Percy’s shoulder, her nails are just as chewed-up as they were when he went to bed.

“Lani,” tumbles out of him. “Lani, is she- Is she okay?” 

“You had the same dream,” Annabeth guesses, and that’s when Percy finally notices that her face is pale as a sheet, as if a leech drained all the blood out of her body. “I just checked. Safe and sound in her crib. She’s- This is bad. This is getting worse than we thought.”

Percy doubles over, shoving his head in-between his knees. “You heard what he said. We have to- We have to at least talk to him. I need- I’m- I’m going to throw up.” She quickly grabs him the trash can, and he vomits, just as he said.

There’s a moment of quiet before she says, “We need to talk with him together. We can do it. Y’know. For each other. For Lani.”

“We might lose her if we do this.”

“It’s better than seeing shit like _that every night,_” Annabeth shoots back. “C’mon. Me and you, together. We’ve- We have _got_ this.”

He hesitates, because it's hard to brush that nightmare like Annabeth seemingly has, but eventually, he nods. _Yeah,_ Percy thinks, leaning back against the bed reset. _Together, they go see what he wants._


	52. Chapter 52

Together. That's the forever promise, isn't it? The thing adults shake in their boots over vowing, right before they have a nice party? That's the thing that lasts longer than you, or me, or anyone?

Almost anyone.

Gods are “forever,” carried by sheer force of will and legacy. As long as there is someone who knows the name, urging them to carry on, carry the banner, rally magnificently, the gods will stay.

Monsters are forever. Send a bullet through the head or through the heart (the head is faster but the heart makes them suffer if you really want to mean it) or a dagger to the neck or an arrow to the heel. They won't be gone. They wake up at Home, in the dark pit, in the underbelly of Their Once And Future Father, the father of all things, licking their wounds and crawling through the land, cool as they please.

Together.

Percy and Annabeth are strewn between the two worlds, curving lips give way to sharpened teeth and claws on the toes and fingers, all the better to tear you apart with, my dear. Right before they fell in, the whole world collapsed, right onto the two of them. They were the only two people in the world from that moment forward, with Hazel and Nico screaming out for them, outstretched hands and desperation couldn't stop them from looking into each other’s world-weary eyes and promising _together, together, together, as long as we're together. We'll make it out alright, out of the pit, out of the pit after the pit, after the light after the pit after the pit. You're stuck with me forever, and I'm never letting go. This is a promise. This is a threat. Together._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ive recently gotten into some VERY bad anime


	53. Chapter 53

The first time one of them said I love you to one another, it was just some dumb day. It was late October, the New York streets busy with the hustle-bustle, and it rained that day. They got caught in the middle, walking home from a date when the raindrops began to fall, and they were too busy shrieking like kids and running for cover that Percy completely forgot to keep the water off of Annabeth too. He got a little wet in the beginning, because okay, maybe they were kissing a little in Central Park as they walked back from wherever they ate lunch and maybe Percy can’t keep himself dry when he’s preoccupied like that, but the fact of the matter is Annabeth was soaked and freezing, and Percy’s hair was very slightly damp.

“Okay, it’s official.” Annabeth wrung her hair out, just inside the door of Percy’s apartment building. “You can’t plan anything.”

“I’d try to argue with you, but…” All he had to offer was a sheepish smile and a shrug. 

Annabeth raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re getting smarter, Seaweed Brain,” she told him, and he laughed like he was just pleased to have been addressed (which he was - maybe two months later, and it was still such a rush of wonder to know that’s a _pet-name,_ not just a nickname (is it a pet-name? It’s probably a pet-name)). 

She looked down, clearly upset with getting soaked, and as she had told him at the beginning of the date _I spent like an hour wrangling my hair to get it like this,_ tied back in braids. He knew it was a thing, wanting to look nice for dates (it’s not like he was going to dates in sweatpants and old camp shirts), but also, he really wanted to tell her that she looked nice, even when her hair was unwashed and unbrushed and it looked nice when it was still sopping wet and plastered to her head in that sort-of brown color blonde hair turns when it gets wet.

His hair fell in front of his eyes, her gentle touch of pushing it away brushing across his forehead, and he decided that he needed to tell her this, that when he saw Aphrodite for the first time he saw Annabeth and the goddess _still_ didn't compare. He opened his big dumb mouth and was about to tell her all this, but all that came out was “I love you,” and, okay, not what he was going for but he could work with that because _yeah_ he _does._

“W-what?” Annabeth stumbled, faltered, like he knew she would. It was always nice when he knew what was going on in her head, because it was just proof that five years of knowing a girl really adds up nicely.

“I love you,” he repeated, more sure of himself than he had been in a while.

“Percy, I… I don’t…”

He squeezed her hand, a close-lipped, private smile working its way up his face. “I know. You have to have a plan, Athena _always_ has a plan. You can’t just think about it, you have to pull out the books, the calculator, the lists. It can’t just be any plan, it has to be _your_ plan.” Her face fell a little, and, oops. He also wanted to tell her that that was his favorite thing about her, her unwillingness to bend to anything she couldn’t accept. It was annoying, it had almost gotten them killed in the past, but he thought - he thinks - it was the best thing about her, a million times over. “You don’t have to say it back. I just- I just wanted you to know.”

Her face fell more, and she leaned herself up against him, apologizing for the mess she was, and he also wanted to tell her _I didn't get the phrase "cross-eyed with exhaustion" until I met you (and he wants to tell her about it all: about staying up so late at night, exchanging emails with her on the faintly buzzing family computer, face giddy whenever a message came through, lit up by the blue glow, and how he would always be so tired when his mom finally pulled him off the computer but he would always do it again the next day and night just to talk to her; about being fifteen-almost-sixteen and thinking about her breathlessly in the night, the way they fought like cats and dogs but always made up and Annabeth's hunched form in the training arena when they went against each other to get the Misplaced Teenage Aggression out and there was that moment where they paused and she bounced on her heels and leaned forwards slightly, her slouch lean and direct but still powerful, and with the sweat glistening in her brow and the satisfaction twinkling in her eyes and the way her muscles rippled as she readjusted her grip on her dagger and her shield and he stayed up so late that night with her name formed on the tip of his tongue; the way they studied like crazy together for his math final, and he went to the local Starbucks to get himself a coffee and her a peppermint hot chocolate because even though she didn't like coffee it helped him focus a little better and it was nearly two AM and he yawned like a snake in that line and when he came back to the table in the library fifteen minutes later she was fast sleep, head pillowed on some lengthy books and he set the drink just close enough she could reach it and just far enough that she wouldn't accidentally knock it over when she did her typical twitches in her sleep, a small tic she had had since they were kids and he could never bring himself to make fun of and while she slept he studied)_ but Percy just smiled and kissed the top of Annabeth's head.

Finally, she groaned out, “Ugh, sorry about your sweatshirt,” and though he could think mushy thoughts about Annabeth all day, he took his out gracefully, with a “_My_ sweatshirt? You stole that thing like a month ago! Before it even got cold!” and they bickered the rest of the way up to his apartment.

It went on like that, for a while if he’s being honest. He’s not exactly patient with most things, a majority of demigods aren’t, but he could tell, whenever he sae Annabeth, she was thinking _gods, give me more time, I can’t just say it._ And also, that’s kind of his whole life, being patient for Annabeth. Not in a bad way. Never in a bad way. Just a fact of life. Plus, he knows when he’s not patient enough, they just get in huge fights. He distinctly recalls every interaction with Annabeth being seven levels of painful yet wonderful after the Labyrinth. They got in fights, they made up, they had a moment, then they would fight again, usually over Luke or Rachel or the upcoming war, but sometimes about stupid issues that would normally be brushed over if they weren’t just so _fed up_ with each other all the time. They were better then, neither of them with a death prophecy over their heads, but an issue like “I love you” could send them off again. Nobody wanted that.

But even though he's patient with her and he's only gotten more patient with age, there's still that selfish little part of him that’s always going to be fourteen years old, just a month shy of fifteen, that just got kissed by Annabeth Chase and left Calypso’s island and is mad she’s still thinking about _Luke Castellan._ So one day, when they were studying for the finals before winter break together in his room with his parents out grocery shopping, he got bored and rolled her from her stomach to her back and trailed kisses on her neck. 

Annabeth eventually got him to get off, albeit reluctantly for both parties, and got up and said she needed to go so she could _actually_ study, her face still flushed an uneven pink, and okay, yeah, she was really struggling with biology and she needed to be prepared for that stupid test but _still._ But that isn’t the selfishness, that’s just Percy being bored and wanting to kiss his great and wonderful girlfriend.

The selfishness comes when, once Annabeth got her bag packed and she kissed him goodbye and she headed towards the elevator, she suddenly flung herself back to him and kissed him more thoroughly. She broke away soon enough, the door still flung open for any voyeuristic New Yorker to see, and she stared at him and said: “Percy, I love… I- I love…” and her eyes had a crazy desperation in them, looking for an out, looking for an in, looking for a script or a hundred-point bulleted list on how to go about loving Percy Jackson.

And Percy’s selfish and stupid and he’s always going to be who he was when he was a kid, just carefully stowed away, and the fourteen-year-old who was always mad at and always had the hots for Annabeth teamed up with the twelve-year-old who wondered if anyone - his mom, his teachers, whatever friends (correction, friend) he might have had - even wanted him to stay (because why else would him mom send him to a different boarding school every year, and why else would his best and only friend say he was _worried_ for Percy, and why else would his favorite teacher tell him in front of the whole class that it was only a matter of time before he got expelled because he was _different_) and suggested: “You love donuts? Or Saturday mornings? ‘Cause those things are a lot easier and better to love than I am.”

She looked pained, he felt pained, but he didn’t hold it against her when she replied, very sadly and very quietly with a very forced smile, “You love donuts. I’ll keep that in mind.” He hugged her close, and it hurt but she was _trying_ and he was _trying._

“Baby steps,” he whispered, with a very _real_ smile.

After that, they got winter break early due to the school’s “good behavior” (Pft, yeah right. Goode may be better than a lot of school’s Percy went to, but they were still a school with a very comprehensive list of ways to deal with “trouble” students, ranging from how to treat someone like Percy or Annabeth and how to treat someone who, oh, you know, snuck into whatever room hosted all the switchboards that power lights or heating and decided to switch off the heater in the middle of winter) and it was marching up to camp they went.

They stayed by the fire for a little bit that evening but left before the harpies could think to check for curfew breakers and when they walked they got into an “argument” about something stupid and teasing and Annabeth asked with the dopiest yet most incredulous smile ever, “Why do I put up with you?” and Percy automatically opened his mouth to answer _Because you love me_ but then he realized what he was about to say and closed his mouth with an audible click, then looked away.

He knew Annabeth knew what he was going to say, but she was trying. It was awkward for a moment before he grinned at her, deliberately sunny, and set the argument off again, racing towards the Athena cabin and laughing loudly.

And _then,_ at the edge of the stairs to the doorway, in a gentle moment, saying goodbye to one another, Annabeth grabbed him in for the goodnight kiss. He cupped her face, brushing the patch where her hair started on her neck, and pressed foreheads together once they pulled away from the kiss. It was quiet and cold for a moment, and Percy stared at her through his eyelashes, thoughts hazy as he just _looked_ at her. When she opened her eyes, he couldn’t help but murmur “I love you,” shivering gently thanks to the weather and the way she watched him.

He always left a space for her to respond, just in case, but she bit her lip and responded, “Good night, Percy.” And though he accepted it, that she wasn’t going to utilize that pause until she had mapped her feelings out and proclaimed herself ready, it was always disappointing.

Percy said “G’night, Annabeth,” like a good boyfriend should, but something told him he shouldn’t move. Neither of them moved. But it stretched out long enough that the feeling passed, and untangled himself from her and stepped back once tentatively, then turned towards his cabin.

Annabeth _launched_ herself at him, stumbling over her words and grabbing his wrist, “Percy, wait-” and he turned back around, accepted the easy kiss. There was something in the air that told him to _stay there, stay with Annabeth, something bad is going to happen tonight_ but even the most astute of demigods had to say, “Nah, that’s stupid,” and go on with their life. Percy was reluctant to do so, Annabeth’s hand curled towards the small of his back and he could feel the energy pulsating between her fingertips and the spot, even through his puffy winter jacket. The something in the air continued, _commit this face to memory, guy, you’re gonna need it._

“I have to go,” he finally told her quietly. She nodded. “I love you,” he said once more, just in case. In her eyes, he could tell she felt something was wrong too. 

“Bye,” Annabeth whispered.

And Percy headed back to his cabin, and he fell asleep wondering, _she’ll love me, right? Like I love her? Of course she will. Right?_

He didn’t have any dreams.

But.

When he woke up, it was in a dry and musty cave with spider-webs in his hair. He brushed them out, only vaguely registering _huh, this is kind of an odd place to wake up_ before he turned his head and _OH HOLY FUCK THAT’S A WOLF IN HIS FACE._

And whoever he was, he couldn’t remember his own name, and he startled back. The wolf, somehow, raised an eyebrow at him and said, “I am Lupa. Be not afraid, Perseus Jackon.”

And if he knew who he was at that moment, he probably would’ve conceded that that was not the weirdest thing that ever happened to him. But he didn’t, so he didn’t.

And a while after that, when he held Annabeth tight in his arms and they had a moment to rest in the sunlight on the deck of the… boat-ship-thing, she told him, the words muffled by her face shoved in his neck but clear as a bell all the same, “I love you.”

And he could barely hear her scream it over the whistling of the way down the pit, the defiant “I LOVE YOU!” yelled into his ear.

And she says, “I love you,” then, like it’s a fact of life, because it is, right before Annabeth feels the edge of sleep steal her away into the world between the dream and the reality, and it sucks it took so much to hear her say it, say it, finally. But it’s worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this ones mushy. and also i stole SO many lines from [Waiting for Tomorrow to Come](https://archiveofourown.org/works/235529) im sorry broski if youre reading this youre probably not you havent written pjo since 2013 anyways its just so GOOD

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr is transannabeths. i love to talk with you all.](http://www.transannabeths.tumblr.com)


End file.
